For some reason I haven’t

For some reason I haven’t been able to find this anywhere else, but Australia’s Herald Sun newspaper is reporting that Saddam Hussein’s top bodyguard has fled Iraq and is being debriefed by the Israelis somewhere in the Negev desert. The bodyguard, Abu Hamdi Mahmoud, has allegedly described the whereabouts of Iraq’s principal biological and chemical storage warehouses, some of which are buried under sand dunes in the desert, while others are underneath Baghdad’s sewers. According to the Herald Sun, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has shared only a few snippets of Mahmoud’s information with American and British intelligence agencies. A source close to Sharon is quoted as saying that Sharon “intends to shatter the growing anti-war movement” by contacting wavering European leaders to relate how Saddam has fooled the U.N. inspectors.
Two weeks ago, Debka File reported the defection of one of Saddam’s bodyguards. He was identified only by a pseudonym. The information attributed to that individual sounds similar to what is now coming from Mahmoud. One wonders whether Mahmoud defected two weeks or more ago, and Debka scooped the rest of the world’s media.
If the Herald Sun’s information is correct, it is hard to see a basis on which Democrats or hostile Europeans can continue opposing the President’s poicy on Iraq. But I suppose they’ll think of one.